Delicious Cupcake Recipes |

Making cupcakes is easy. Bake the cupcake mixture and then decorate. You
will end up with a tasty cupcake but it will never look as good as a
professional version. How do they do it? We reveal all the secrets to
making the perfect cupcake. |
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KEY POINTS
Pre-cooking Time: |
15 minutes |
Cooking Time: |
18 mins |
How Difficult |
Easy |
Freeze? |
No |
|
Servings |
6 large, 12 small |
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INGREDIENTS
The tastiest cupcakes use butter rather than soft margarine. Both
produce good results but the butter ones are noticeably tastier.
If you are using butter, as we recommend, then it will need to be at room
temperature before mixing. So before you do anything else, get the
butter out of the fridge, chop it up into slices on a plate and leave in
a warmish room for 15 to 20 minutes.
The reason for the butter being at room temperature is that it is then
easier to mix with the other ingredients. Using refrigerated butter will
make the mixing very hard work.
All of the amounts in these cupcake recipes are critical.
Ingredients |
Metric |
Imperial |
USA |
Unsalted butter (see ingredients paragraph above)
|
110 grams |
4 oz |
½ cup |
Caster sugar (superfine) |
110 grams |
4 oz |
heaped ½ cup |
Self-raising flour |
110 grams |
4 oz |
a little less than 1 cup |
Eggs |
2 medium-sized |
Milk (semi-skimmed or full fat) |
2 tablespoons |
Vanilla extract |
¼ teaspoon |
WHAT SPECIAL KITCHEN EQUIPMENT?
Cupcake containers. Use standard
cupcake or muffin sized
cake containers. The foil ones are best because they provide good
support but the paper ones also do a good job. They are available in most supermarkets.
Small cake / muffin cake tins.
It's not necessary to use these cake tins but they do support the paper
cases very well, producing nicely shaped cupcakes. See the paragraph
below for more details
Most recipes for
cupcakes say to add the mixture to cupcake containers and then bake for
15 to 20 minutes. But there are a whole variety of cake / muffin
containers and they give significantly different results. To avoid
cluttering up this recipe, the various pros and cons of the different
containers are discussed here.
CLICK ANY PICTURE ON
THIS PAGE TO ENLARGE IT
PREPARATION
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Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F / Gas 4. Use a fork to mash up the butter until it softens a bit more. This will take two or three minutes.
Add the sugar to
the butter and mix it in well until both ingredients are combined. It takes a couple of minutes. |
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Break the eggs into a bowl and mix them lightly with a fork until the whites and
yolks are combined. Pour about a third of the whisked eggs into the butter and sugar
mixture and mix well. Add the next third of the eggs, mix well and then do the
same for the remaining third of the eggs. Finish off mixing with a wooden spoon
to remove all the larger lumps. |
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Now add the milk and vanilla essence to the mixture and mix well for
30 seconds or so. Don't worry about the smallish lumps in the mixture. Fold in the flower to the mixture and gently mix it in until all the ingredients are combined well. |
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Spoon the mixture into the cup cake containers, filling each to about two
thirds full. Use a teaspoon for this and drop the mixture into the
centre of the cup to avoid leaving bits around the edge. Leave the cupcakes for about five minutes to allow the
mixture to settle evenly.
If using a flat baking tray, ensure the
cakes are kept well apart. Place in the preheated oven and bake for
about 15 to 20 minutes. |
Note: if you are cooking tiny sweet cup cakes (see pictures at end of
article), the cooking time is about 12 to 14 minutes.
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Cooking time varies on the size of the cupcake. The smaller the cupcake
the shorter the cooking time. They are ready when the top is a light
golden brown. Their tops will spring back when lightly pressed. Another
way to test if they are cooked is to insert a narrow metal spike into
the middle. If it comes out "clean", the cakes are done.
Take the cupcakes from the oven and leave to cool for 20 minutes
before decorating. |
Click on one of the toppings below to see how to make them:
MORE CAKE AND PIE RECIPES
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